motivation Archives - Booktalk Africa

“I DON’T KNOW WHERE THE LIMITS ARE, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO GO THERE.” –ELIUD KIPCHOGE

“Today we went to the Moon and came back to earth!” Eliud Kipchoge tweeted on the day he broke the two-hour marathon barrier. “This shows no human is limited,” he boldly declared during media interviews that day.

Before the famous history-making INEOS 1:59 Challenge, Kipchoge was already a record breaker. He had won ten out of eleven marathons that he had ran, nine of them successively. He was already the world champion and greatest marathon runner of all time.

So, what was the INEOS Challenge about? Why did Kipchoge decide to do this?

Motivation

Although no human being had ever achieved what Kipchoge was setting out to achieve, it was never going to count officially as a record. He did it anyway, just to inspire each of us that we too can overcome our limitations. Kipchoge stated that his personal goal for the challenge was “to show to the world that when you focus on your goal, when you work hard and when you believe in yourself, anything is possible.” And once he accomplished it he said, “Now I’ve done it, I’m expecting more people to do it after me.”

Discipline

Surely, even champions get tired, right? When Kipchoge won the London Marathon for the fourth time – in April, 2019 – beating his own record for London, he could have simply sat back and basked in his achievements. His time of 2:02:37 was the second-fastest marathon of all time – second only to his own record in Berlin. He was clearly the best of the best. But rather than take a vacation, he rested for three weeks and embarked on training for the INEOS Challenge. He started by jogging about 20kms three times a week and gym workouts also three times a week. His training routine increased in intensity. It even included regular ice baths.

Consistency

Kipchoge has said that “when you bring motivation and discipline together, then you can be consistent.” This makes perfect sense because we can only keep doing what matters to us, and even that, only if we have built up our self-discipline. “If you are not consistent, you cannot go anywhere,” he has reiterated. And he has certainly proved this by his own consistent training.

Kipchoge worked extremely hard to give us hope that we too can achieve great things, including our most audacious goals.

Have you stretched yourself lately?

Like Kipchoge, we needn’t be recognized officially for our breakthroughs; for our personal victories. Kipchoge also shows that it takes intentionality and a crystal-clear vision to accomplish our highest dreams. Whether you’re a student with a burning desire to learn and excel; a parent determined to give more quality to your kids; a writer with a book in your head and that you’ve been wanting to write; or a scientist working on a breakthrough cure – you can reach for the moon.

Focus on your goal, work hard, keep at it. Remember, no human is limited.

“You Are One Decision Away from a Completely Different Life.” ―Mel Robbins

You’ve heard of the five second rule – the myth that food which falls on the floor is safe to eat, provided you pick it up within five seconds. While this rule seems ill-advised, there is another five second rule that may be well worth trying.

Motivational speaker Mel Robbins, author of the book The 5 Second Rule, tells a story of how she conquered the snooze button on her alarm clock. As soon as her alarm clock went off in the morning, she would count backwards 5-4-3-2-1, throw her beddings off, and jump out of bed. It may sound rather simplistic, but it worked. She explains that counting down interrupts your brain from thinking of all the reasons why you don’t want to, or are too afraid to get out of bed. In fact, Mel asserts that this works for any difficult task that you want to embark on. If you don’t start within five seconds of thinking of it, your brain will sabotage you by presenting you with a host of difficulties and fears.

Mel’s theory is simple. If you wait to feel like doing anything difficult, it’s never going to happen.

No one gets out of bed on a freezing cold morning because they feel like it. No one stays up past midnight working on a report because they feel like it. No one runs to the finish line in a marathon just because they feel like it.

We can safely conclude two things. The first is that motivation is not a feeling. The second is that motivation has to be intrinsic. An external stimulus, like an alarm clock, is not sufficient, on its own, to get you out of bed. In the same vein, we can conclude that external stimuli, like being offered more money, can only go so far in motivating us to work harder.

We want to achieve things; to start the day earlier, to get those reports done, to exceed the sales goals that seem elusive. But how can we move from ‘wanting’ to actually ‘doing’. How can we harness that self-motivation that just seems to fly out the window every morning, leaving us feeling like tomorrow is probably a better day to begin?

Harvard psychology Professor Ron Siegel says that our brains naturally warn us away from tasks that seem unpleasant to us to help us survive danger. If, for instance, you associate getting up early with feeling cold and miserable, your brain will try to protect you from doing it.

To test Professor Siegel’s premise, you might want to build new and pleasant associations in your mind to waking up early; perhaps having time to eat a delicious breakfast before work. To help get started, maybe Mel’s method – jumping out of bed before your brain kicks in – is just what you need.

What is it, inside you, keeps you going at any task even when you’re tired and just plain fed-up?

Tag: motivation

HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE MOON LATELY?

Apr 20, 2020

“I DON’T KNOW WHERE THE LIMITS ARE, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO GO THERE.” –ELIUD KIPCHOGE

CULTIVATING YOUR INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Apr 01, 2020